Not Entirely About Living In New York

Below is the poem entitled Not Entirely About Living In New York which was written by poet
Matt
Caliri. Please feel free to comment on this poem. However, please remember, PoetrySoup is a place of encouragement and growth.

Not Entirely About Living In New York

I’m sorry for my flaws
I appreciate everything you do for me
I wish I could always smile at passing children
I wish I felt better about myself
I wish I saw the light you provide for me
The light I voluntarily turn my back from
The light I’m suppose to drink
As if to keep hydrated.
I’m surrounded by quarters and unfinished books
I read because I’m searching for affirmation
Quarters for clothes to be kept clean.
I’m divulgent
I parade my flaws
I hide, trip, and reveal my flaws
I am in constant concern of my own being
And a stillness of thought for a mind to be kept clean.
The world is a messy place
Our mind the raking of leaves
The leaves of the world fall and we rake
The leaves of the world fall and we rake
We fall and awake and fall again.
Love is warm, harmless, and stamped
Inefficiently weak by the assemblies of faces
Swept up by the world’s business of cold linear time
Moving like a sad and brutal train.
I sit at the station
My fingers interlocked pressing against my face
Peering through the thicket of my spirit.
Hours later, maybe, I am looking up the hill
Pulling my elephant.
Children circle around my small progress
Skipping and laughing.
(They don’t care,
They just like elephants.)
Though, last night, I dreamt I rode a killer whale
And so here it dawns on the weakened spirit:
That I am the Whale Rider of the Phantom World
Wandering through 10th Avenue
My flaws in our wake
My fist pumped high in the air
In the name of a Life Authentic.
This all dreamy and wonderful
While in the world of machines and mass movement
The elephant keeps his slow, tugging gait behind me,
Ignorant of dreams.